The Ego is Crushed like a Snail Shell Under a Stiletto, and is Begrudgingly Divested of its Own Smugness by Victoria Kennefick

When you slipped out of your skin,
you slip of a thing,
the skin I thought I knew you in, it was dazzling
and terrifying. How I had to slough
wifehood off my dry arms, scrub it from my violently
blue-white legs, exfoliate its unmistakable musk.
You were no more my husband than any other woman.
What a thing to miss! And yet, and yet I tried to imagine
clinging to you like a 1980s polyester nighty sparking in the dark
for God’s sake, images of bodies reaching over the mantelpiece
and going up in flames, people chimneys, burned on my child brain.
Maybe I could do it, and clutch all that we made tightly
until my fists shook. Stupid, smug ego snail. Who am I now
without you but what I have always been, a white feather
in the wind. I told you that when we met, and you cupped me
in your hands – loosely, and the wind could blow
at any gale, get knotted, and sure I’d toss a bit, and shiver,
but I could mull that over in the dark, in the dark, in the dark –
did you know? Did you know? They all ask, questions like prodding
fingers. Have they stripped their spouses’ skin clean?
Have they watched something fall away –
a lie, no.
A pretense, no.
A realisation, yes.
An epiphany, definitely.
What a ridiculous question though
when you didn’t know and dressed as best you could
in what you thought you should. We were just playing
I suppose, until it was clear that it was serious as murder.
The end of us, I mean.
The dream of us.
Not your slinky escape from your chrysalis, not
your beautiful fluttering into the light.

~ from Egg/Shell (Carcanet, 2024)